The newb horde flood.

[thorin]

I agree with Barry.

It's gotten so bad, I've bookmarked posts so I can copy/paste replies.

[SephStorm]

*sighs*

*shakes head*

[bofh28]

Barry; I agree with what you are saying. But, since the search capability on the site is a bit lacking

Maybe the BackTrack Support Engine should be added to the bookmarks toolbar for BT4? Part of the problem is there are so many stickies in the newbie area noone is going to read them all. Then there is no reference to the BTSE so a newbie won't know about.

My suggestion is to remove the sticky from the BT4 artwork contest.
Combine the Basic newbie stuff here please!....,Forum Rules - Read Before Posting!, If you're a Linux noob, read this thread, and the New forum registration procedures topics into one sticky at the top. I can put together a draft if requested to do so.

vBulletin 4 looks like it might help. From their website:

Key features and improvements that will be included in the first vBulletin 4 release are:

* Cross-content search system providing a single interface to search across forum posts, blog entries and comments and other supported products
* Improved search performance
* A fresh design and layout making use of semantic markup and CSS styling
* An enhanced style and template system to enhance your ability to change the layout
* Controls to assist with the placement of advertising elements
* SEO features, including friendly URLs
* A centralized attachment system, allowing the sharing of attachments across products

[bofh28]

I did it anyway:

Thank you for joining the BackTrack forums. We want everyone to enjoy using & contributing to our projects, so please follow our very minimal and common sense rules:

By registering with these forums you agree to be bound by the following rules:

All new registered users will be moderated and will have to wait for a period of 3 days before they can post new threads on any other forum than the Newbie Area. This cuts down on spam.

We do not condone any illegal activity at all.

Please search before posting a question. The builtin search capabilities are bad. We know this but there is nothing we can do to fix it. Instead of using the builtin search capabilities please use the BackTrack Support Search Engine at http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=00...%3Avpdhc1qej9k

If your search didn't return any results please check the Tutorials And Guides Forum.

To check if you hardware is compatible with BackTrack please go to the new BackTrack Wiki, at: http://backtrack.offensive-security.com

Please post all basic type questions in the Newbie forum. This will hopefully stop the other forums from being clogged up with very basic Q & A 's

Use sensible descriptive titles in your posts - not titles such as "Please Help!!" or "Need Assistance" or "what Am I Doing Wrong?" etc

Do not cross-post - 1 post in the relevant area is enough!

Any advice/information offered in these forums is to be used for the legal informational/professional/educational purposes for which it is intended.

Do not post about breaking into networks that do not belong to you and for which you have no permissions.

Any religious, political or pornographic references will not be tolerated.

Posts like - "Oooh! look!! I've cracked my neighbors wireless AP" or "How do I hack a network!?" are not needed here, thanks.

Please don't bother with spam messages - they will be removed/moved/edited/deleted and you will be banned.

Members signatures may NOT contain URL links, in any form.

We will no longer tolerate abusive or derogatory remarks, or members acting like self-appointed moderators. The forum staff are here to help you. Please use their services. If ANY member has an issue with the content of ANY post within these forums, use the "REPORT THIS POST" button - This is the red triangle icon when using the default forum theme, or the asterisk icon when using the Blackfire Razor forum theme, found in the top right corner of each post.

Breaking the forum rules may incur infractions ranging from loss of posting privileges to temporary or permanent ban.

These rules are subject to alteration and/or addition. It is your responsibility to be aware of any changes.

Thank you and please enjoy you stay.

[williamc]

That is a lovely newb start page. However, I don't see any of them using it.

I think the problem comes from two main causes. Initially, the more exposure the distribution gets, the more tards you will get attempting to use it. However, the bigger issue is moving to Ubuntu. The Ubuntu community has a special type of tard associated with it. It may be due to their reliance on catchy phrases in their posts, such as : "OMG, What did I do?" or "HELP, its not working". I'm not sure why we read these posts, but I know most of us do. I'm not proud of it, I know it just encourages them. (sigh) Anyway, they pick up Backtrack thinking there will be no learning curve. I had the misfortune of attempting to help one of these freaks of nature. I made the mistake of adding him to my messenger and got bombarded with some of the most pitiful and thoughtless questions I've ever heard. I should have known that a request of "Teach me to hack" would lead to trouble.

I think what we need is a tard-o-rometer. If a user gets a high enough score, his username and IP are banned. That should keep him away for a few weeks, until comtastic assigns him a new IP.

William

William

[KMDave]

Good idea about the tard-o-meter.

Well also read this one. Either it is a really bad joke or a new all time low i've seen around here.

[Thorn]

I should have known that a request of "Teach me to hack" would lead to trouble.

There's a reason that any "Teach me to hack" post is an automatic ban on the DefCon Forums.

Good idea about the tard-o-meter.

Well also read this one. Either it is a really bad joke or a new all time low i've seen around here.

B) "All time low."

[Barry]

There's a reason that any "Teach me to hack" post is an automatic ban on the DefCon Forums.



B) "All time low."

Wow, I missed that one.

[bofh28]

That is a lovely newb start page. However, I don't see any of them using it.

I think the problem comes from two main causes. Initially, the more exposure the distribution gets, the more tards you will get attempting to use it. However, the bigger issue is moving to Ubuntu. The Ubuntu community has a special type of tard associated with it. It may be due to their reliance on catchy phrases in their posts, such as : "OMG, What did I do?" or "HELP, its not working". I'm not sure why we read these posts, but I know most of us do. I'm not proud of it, I know it just encourages them. (sigh) Anyway, they pick up Backtrack thinking there will be no learning curve. I had the misfortune of attempting to help one of these freaks of nature. I made the mistake of adding him to my messenger and got bombarded with some of the most pitiful and thoughtless questions I've ever heard. I should have known that a request of "Teach me to hack" would lead to trouble.

I think what we need is a tard-o-rometer. If a user gets a high enough score, his username and IP are banned. That should keep him away for a few weeks, until comtastic assigns him a new IP.

William

Thank you.

I think you are right that noone would read it. Maybe if during the registration process the rules could be shown on the screen with a clock counting down from say 5 minutes until the field where the user must type in "I have read the above" before they could post...

Also I think the tutorials section needs an overhaul. It is too difficult to find what you are looking for.

[webtrol]

<completely stolen, unoriginal, old - and funny>

There are no stupid questions, just lots of inquisitive idiots.

Sin-cerely,
Trol